MSRP:

$999

Overall Rating: 6.63

If you can get over the fact that some of their "features" like heart rate simply don't work, you can realize that with what you save, you can buy a whole bunch of heart rate monitors to use with it.

General Information

These products are produced by Icon Health and Fitness. They are the largest retail fitness company. Like the original HealthRider, a gimmicky little machine that did more to ruin your back than to workout your muscles, these treadmills are high on features. With the improvement across the line to parts quality, they have taken care of past quality problems to a great extent.

Quality / Philosophy

Health Rider is produced by Icon, and this factory has over 200 engineers that help craft their products. Put simply, they are the best designed treadmills in the business. In the past, they have had to be the best because they used the cheapest parts in the business. They have finally discovered that you can find some of the key component parts overseas for less. The eventual cost is less if you put more quality into the machine; so the quality of drive motors, rollers, and other key components are much higher than in the past and they price their machines lower than anyone else if you compare apples to apples.

Outlook

Icon is the largest fitness equipment producer in the world with over $1 billion in sales. If the fitness industry were a solar system, Icon is so powerful that they would be the Sun. In terms of stability, they are the best, but overall their customer service isn't up to the standards of any of the lower volume producers. Although you get a value price for the product, you also get value service so keep this in mind when buying their machines. Due to the sheer number of units they produce, we pick up support in many cases where this factory leaves off.